There Again Today
by Mala
Summary: Sydney, the 1400s, the present, and a Man Who Wasn't There. Spans "ATY" to "Cipher".


Title: "There Again Today"  
Author: Mala  
E-mail: malisita@yahoo.com  
Fandom: "Alias"  
Rating/Classification: R, angst, language, general.  
Disclaimer: JJ Abrams and Bad Robot!  
Summary: Spans "Almost Thirty Years" to "Cipher", Sydney has many, many, burdens to carry. And a little company from the past.  
Note: I don't actually speak Italian, so everything is courtesy of my grasp of Spanish and some online Italian dictionaries.  
  
As I was going up the stair,  
I met a man who wasn't there.  
I met him there again today.  
I wish, I wish he'd go away!  
--Hughes Mearns  
  
Sometimes she has fractured waking dreams while she's on the plane ...listening to the communication feed from base while filing through mission specs held against the curve of her lap. The visions aren't of Prague or Bogota or Paris, but of Rome. A bearded man with kind eyes leans close to her ear and whispers, "Sei piu bella d'un angelo"...and when she turns to blush and tell him that she's no angel, not beautiful, the seat next to her is empty and Dixon leans across the aisle with questions in his voice.   
  
Brushing through the crowd in a Bangkok marketplace, the heavy scent of spice and cow shit in the air, she pulls the ball cap down more securely over her brow and stops, stock still, when the hand closes around her shoulder and the dark gaze twinkles with insight...and just the tiniest hint of mischief. "Non ce nessuno come te." *There's no one like you.*  
  
"Grazie," she says, quickly, irreverently, before he vanishes and the nasal twang of Thai comes back to her throat.  
  
Sometime before Taipei, she begins to call him The Man Who Wasn't There, knowing he has a name...one that she doesn't want to acknowledge quite yet because that gives him too much power, too much of an anchor, in her reality. There is already a man like that in her life...who exists on the edges of her consciousness and can never step any closer. She doesn't need another.  
  
But when the red, gargantuan ball bursts, unleashing it's tide of water, pulling away and drowning that bittersweet green-eyed hope, she stumbles against the door, beats it until her fists are bloody, and she curses him out loud.  
  
"Vaffanculo, Rambaldi! *Fuck you*."  
  
***  
  
She dreams that Roma is beautiful in the twilight. And she wanders with Michel under the pale light of the waning moon. Their hands are linked against the folds of her gown, discreetly hidden from the eyes of the catcalling puttanas in the doorways who insist the fair-haired ben armato could do far better than a little vergine who can't possibly ease the impressive ache in his loins.  
  
But she does. She eases that and more when she slips her nimble fingers inside his hose and he sweeps her against the wall with the force of his kisses, the impassioned whispers of "Anima mia" and "Ti amo".  
  
Minutes, they only have minutes...and he pulls away, regretfully, as he tells her that Lionello can only cover for him for so long...as captain of the guard, they expect him back at the Vatican pronto.  
  
That's okay, she murmurs against his throat. Milo needs her back at his workshop. Tonight, tonight he will begin to teach her the codes, how to translate his drawings. Bishops and kings will reward them greatly for his genius and she will finally have enough coin to come to her love as a suitable wife.  
  
And, some day...some day alchemist's apprentice and captain will be able to meet in daylight, look at each other as they make love.  
  
"Una promessa," she assures, softly. A promise.  
  
"Una certezza," he corrects before he pulls away. A certainty.  
  
When she wakes up, she doesn't have the heart to tell him she can't believe that.  
  
***  
  
In Helsinki, she is "bella" and "tristezza" and without any "speranza" and she sees Vaughn out of the corner of her eye, swallows his name and wonders if there is a hypo scar on his chest from where she had to revive him only a matter of days before...wonders if she'll ever get to explore that question for herself and chokes.  
  
The old man is out of place in the modern trendy bar, full of it's glossy Nordic patrons, and yet completely at ease. And he leans forward, wrapping his deft but wrinkled hands around her midsection and squeezes, gently. Her bullet wound throbs and she gasps...but it does not make her stumble.  
  
Nothing could make her stumble now.  
  
"Vaffanculo," she tells Rambaldi, bitterly.  
  
He only smiles blithely and melts into the crowd.  
  
Perhaps he thinks she's her mother.  
  
Perhaps she's beginning to think he's real.  
  
***  
  
She dreams that the music box is finally finished and it plays an achingly beautiful tune. Milo tells her that it needs to be hidden somewhere safe if she wants to have a future, enough of one to marry her fine young soldier, and she does not quite understand.  
  
He clicks his tongue and pushes her out into the night. "Va!" he orders gruffly as he holds this latest of treasures to his chest.  
  
But as she slips off into the night, with the promise of her lover's lips lifting the corners of her mouth, Lionello brings a cadre of guards to the shop.  
  
Later, she lies cradled in Michel's arms, whispering "si" to his proposal of marriage, and there is fire on the other side of Roma.  
  
When she wakes up, all that is left are ashes and she can taste them.  
  
He tells her he did not know.  
  
She doesn't have the heart to tell him she can't believe him.  
  
***  
  
Sometimes, she debates telling Dr. Barnett about her visions...about how she has a rider on her missions, a co-pilot in her head. One who happens to speak a melodic Renaissance dialect of Italian. The Man Who Wasn't There. But then she remembers that the woman's deep set eyes look at her with enough clinical fascination as it is in their brief little weekly sessions.  
  
There is no need, she thinks, to mention something like "I see dead people" when she's already being forced to meet with Irina Derevko...who is as dead to her as dead gets.  
  
"Buono," he says, patting her shoulder as she walks towards the holding cell, a pad with author's names on it clutched in her white-knuckled hands. "Sei intelligente," he assures her.  
  
But she doesn't feel smart. Just insane and nervous and furious.  
  
There are enough ghosts surrounding her, she thinks. Definitely quite enough.  
  
***  
  
She dreams that San Lazzaro is a safe haven and she whistles as she turns the crisp vellum pages, runs her fingers over the ink sketch of her face. She was always beautiful in Milo's eyes...and he has immortalized her with his pen.  
  
But when the door to the underground workshop bursts open and the manuscript is torn from her hands, she knows it is simply a nightmare. No dream. No safety.  
  
Michel's brow is wrinkled with grief and he cannot meet her eyes as his compatriots defile her master's work, steal it away to be studied and sold even as his name is scrubbed from every wall, every pillar, and cursed in the hallowed halls of the Vatican.  
  
But he tugs her towards the back door over Lionello's protests, whispers, "Ti amo" one last time over the threats, tells her that one day the world will know who Milo Rambaldi was, that, that same day, they *will* be together even as he shields her with his body.  
  
She awakens for the last time and knows...this time...this time she can believe it.  
  
"Una promessa," he says with his last breath, as the blood from Lionello's steady blade blooms across his chest. A promise.  
  
"Una certezza," she reminds as she begins to run. A certainty.  
  
***  
  
The icy water is so cold, her lips taste like a raspberry gelato. The music box has been destroyed and she knows the Agency got the transmission and that these are colossally stupid thoughts to have when someone has his hands wrapped around your throat and your water-logged clothes are dragging you further and further down.  
  
Is this how Vaughn felt in Taipei?  
  
Loose-limbed and weightless and sosoverycold and alone and dreaming of her face the way she's suddenly seeing his? VaughnVaughnVaughn.  
  
But then they break surface, Sark kicking madly even as she gasps for breath, for free air, and he drags her up onto the shattering ice.  
  
The Man Who Wasn't There hunches down next to them like a referee about to count to three and perhaps it isn't her frozen imagination after all...because she sees his hands first on Sark's shoulders, and then tracing the younger man's fingers, stopping their frostbitten assault on her throat.  
  
"Basta!" he says. "Enough!"  
  
Waking dreams aren't supposed to talk to other people. And those other people aren't supposed to listen, eyes wide and blond hair turning into icicles as he stumbles back into a pile of snow.  
  
The music box is useless, she wants to tell him, defiantly. But her throat doesn't quite work yet and she's still coughing...choking, now, on a raspberry freeze. There is death in his eyes but The Man Who Wasn't There has muted it for the moment.  
  
"Per quale?" *Why*? Her teeth chatter, knock together the words.  
  
And he simply shrugs. "Sei suo sorella." *You're his sister.*  
  
"WHAT?"  
  
Rambaldi does not repeat himself. Simply vanishes again. Their usual exchange of compliments and insults, it seems, will be saved for another time.  
  
And as she rolls over, wincing at the aches and the rawness and the ice slipping inside her bandages, she wraps her fingers around Sark's wrist. "Is it true?" she shouts over the wind.  
  
"Yes," he sneers, staring back at her with altogether too familiar eyes. "You're my sister." He uses her grip to pull her close...to whisper the rest of what she already knows against her cheek. "Irina...Irina Derevko is my mother."  
  
And then Dixon hits him over the head with the butt of his gun...a little unnecessary since neither of them are in any condition to do much more damage to each other.  
  
It must be genetic. Because, she thinks hollowly, her newfound brother has managed to get off quite the parting shot.  
  
One that will leave a wound that most definitely will not heal.  
  
***  
  
She dreams that Moscow is beautiful in the spring time. And her son is curled against her, tiny hands fisted in her hair, his father's green eyes staring out from his pink, round, face. Little Mikhail will never know Italy, never know her home, never know another family besides the one Ilya Derevko is so graciously providing them.  
  
But he *will*know everything she has learned from Milo. He *will* carry at least that into the future. He *will* know his destiny.  
  
When she awakens, she believes that.  
  
More than anything.  
  
Una certezza.  
  
Per sempre.  
  
For always.  
  
--end--  
  
October 16, 2002. 


End file.
